Tutoring should I give up?

[juas]

Hi,

I am a qualified teacher and I have been tutoring for 5 years.

Since the pandemic hit I can’t seem to find any students. I want to teach online and I am really good at it. I have reviews and when I was tutoring face to face, I was turning students away. The website I used is online only now, so I can’t even find face to face students and there is so much competition.

I love online learning. I have an interactive classroom and so many resources. I actually think more learning happens online.

Now I’m stuck, I want to carry on as I love doing it but without students I can’t.

Can anyone recommend where I could find students for online learning? Or should I just give up now?

I'm sure you have, but have you tried reaching out to local schools to see if they have any students who might be interested? When I was teaching, we occasionally had a parent email to ask if we could recommend a tutor.
I am a tutor now and most of my business comes from referrals from the schools I used to work in.
Also a Facebook page?

How much are you charging? A lot of online tutors are so expensive. My DC gets online lessons in languages, and they're £20 an hour with experienced native speakers. But tutors from the UK sometimes charge double that. Bearing in mind that the minimum wage is under £10, it's a lot of money.

What age are you looking to tutor? Have you tried local parents through leafleting, targeted Facebook ads, parenting magazines, local schools and colleges?

Are there any existing online tutoring agencies you could get involved with?

Can you advertise privately? I’ve found tutors for my children just from looking on gumtree and Facebook. I particularly like Facebook as you can read through recommendations and reviews. Saying that, I don’t think there’s any demand for online tutoring tbh. There’s enough free websites and tutorials for pretty much everything nowadays, no ones going to want to pay for online lessons.

I also don't think there is a demand for online tutoring for children. And adults (if they are committed) can access a lot online for free.

But in due course the demand for face to face tutoring will build up again of course.

I would suspect that a lot of kids/families interest in online learning may have been seriously diminished by the last few months. For some kids that’s all they’ve been doing for months now.
Online learning holds no interest for mine that’s for sure!
Face to face stuff will pick up again from September I’d have thought.

Also the last year has seen huge increase in free online learning materials.
Many people may not be sure why they should need to pay!

Have a look at this Facebook group

www.facebook.com/groups/911562942712660/?ref=share

I am also a tutor, and did online allthrough lockdown.
I also run a summer camp (completely different topic)
Last year we did the summer camp online, and had lots of response and the camp went well.

This year when planning the camp, we said we would plan real life, but do online if Covid wouldn't allow for real life.
We had loads of kids sign up for real life only, saying they wouldn't take up the online offer.
They are 100% done with anything online. (well, unless it is tick tock)

I don't think kids want to do online at the moment.
I know one teacher who does home school lessons online to groups. She is really good, but she has a group of about 6 and her cost is spplit between the group, so they only pay about £6 each. So price may be involved.

Have you asked families looking for a tutor what they want? There’s no way I’d offer my DS’s online tutoring, they are simply fed up with the platform and desperately need a real life human with them now.
Tutoring in person is hard to come by so may be worth flipping back to this model and trying again.

I prefer face to face tutoring for my youngest child. For my eldest he did some online tutoring for a few months during and post the most recent lockdown. That tutor was reasonably priced though. For those charging rates I consider to be high (£50 + per hour) I want face to face tuition especially for my youngest! Are your really against doing face to face tuition as you would probably pick up customers much more easily if you have a track record and references.

As regards online tuition, you are competing against anyone anywhere in the UK and there will be plenty with low overheads in lower cost areas who can charge less than you for what appears to be the same service.

Compare that to face to face tuition locally and not only do children get the benefit of some one-to-one teaching and interaction in-person (which is nearly always more effective) but you will have the benefit of local word-of-mouth recommendations which set you apart from the competition.

Maybe you could offer a mixture of face to face and online tuition to local families, starting off face to face. Once the children are used to you it may be easier to alternate with online lessons or offer these as an alternative during lockdowns, holidays or for short booster lessons in-between longer in-person lessons? They may gradually migrate to online if they find it works well for them and is convenient.

Online learning isn't the same for students. Most will prefer live.

Teaching seems to be one thing where the teachers prefer online, but the pupils prefer face to face. Ultimately, if you want the business, you have to do what your "customers", i.e. pupils want. You may think, prefer, or "know" that online works best, but customer is king, so you either have to accept that you need to do face to face, or you need to find ways to "pursuade" prospective pupils that online is best. Could you find a unique selling point or niche? How about doing both online AND face to face, i.e. weekly online sessions with a monthly face to face session, so pupils get the best of both Worlds?

What age group and subjects do you teach please?

@WaitingGame20 I teach maths and English up to GCSE.

Thanks Juas I have sent you a PM

I tutor English and I do it mainly online. Most of my work is from word of mouth recommendations and also tutoring websites. I've definitely noticed there's a lot more competition though for tutoring jobs.